The Future of Economic Growth

Around 1750 the world economy began its amazing transformation with the advent of the Industrial Revolution. What happened then and why did it happen? The short answer is “innovation”, according to Professor Michael Spence, a Nobel Prize laureate in Economics. But where does innovation come from?

In the speech below, Spence traces the emergence of the global economy, marking the critical interaction of economics and governance in successful economies in the developing world. He focuses on China and India as emerging economic powers and what their rise will mean for the United States.